Lyceum Student Scientific Society

English Language Section

Multiculturalism in
modern world
Zhernovnikova Polina
Form 10 D

Municipal State-Financed Educational Establishment

“Lyceum №6 named after I.Z. Shuklin”

Guided by: Glushkova N.G.

Gorno-Altaysk

2014
Contents

Introduction …………………………………………….…..…………… 3
Multiculturalism in different countries ………………………………… 4

Support for multiculturalism …………………………………………… 6

Opposition to multiculturalism …………………………………………. 8

Multicultural woo ………………………………………………………… 10

Survey ……………………….………………………….………………….11

Conclusion …………………………………………….………………….. 13

Literature ………………………………………………………………… 14

Supplements

2
Introduction
Before talking about multiculturalism in the modern world let me give the
definition of the word ‘culture’. Longman Dictionary of English Language and
Culture defines culture as ‘the customs, beliefs, art, music, and all other products
of human thought made by a particular group of people at a particular time’. The
modern world can be called multicultural due to racial, cultural and ethnic
diversity. Through the process of globalization and immigration modern society
has become a mixture of different nations and cultures. Cross-cultural contacts
have grown significantly nowadays. Thanks to globalization we can enjoy foreign
goods, food, music, ideas, technologies and practices.
Multiculturalism relates to communities containing multiple cultures. The term is
used in two broad ways, either descriptively or normatively. As a descriptive term,
it usually refers to the simple fact of cultural diversity.
As a normative term, it refers to ideologies or policies that promote this diversity
or its institutionalization. Multiculturalism supports the ideals of democratic
society in which every person is free and equal in dignity and rights. It leads to
understanding, friendship and respect among racial and ethnic groups. All people
are equal which enables them to particulate fully in the social, cultural, economic
and political life irrespective of their race, religion, color of skin or origin. The
positive attitude to multiculturalism plays a very important role in the fight against
all forms of extremist action.
The aim of project is to find out how multiculturalism can help to maintain cultural
differences in a particular country and in the whole world. To reach the aim author
was:
 to learn about forms of multiculturalism in different countries;
 to compare different opinions about the policy of multiculturalism;
 to study various forms of multicultural woo;
 to compare ethnic and religious compositions of different countries.
The author used such methods of researching as literature analysis, survey, the
analysis of data, comparison and generalization.

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Multiculturalism in different countries
Multiculturalism simply does not mean what most of its critics think. The original
home of multiculturalism is Canada. Canadian philosophers and policy-makers
have done most to define and elaborate the concept, since Canada is
quintessentially an immigrant society (Supplement 1). There, multiculturalism
does not mean, and has never meant, different cultural and ethnic groups being left
alone to get on with whatever activities they choose. It actually means the
opposite. Policy-making in Canada stresses active dialogue between cultural
groups, active attempts at creating community cohesion, and the acceptance of
overarching Canadian identity. As a leading Canadian writer, Will Kymlicka, puts
it, multiculturalism in Canada ‘encourages the members of different immigrant
groups to interact, to share their cultural heritage, and to participate in common
educational, economic, political and legal institutions’.
Canada adopted its official ‘multicultural policy’ in 1971. That policy-orientation
has long stressed that language tests, citizenship ceremonies and oaths are
axiomatic for immigrants. Such demands are wholly uncontroversial, among the
host population as well as migrants: indeed they are widely welcomed as a sign of
mutual commitment. Some Canadian-style policies, such as citizenship ceremonies,
have been introduced with success in the UK.
The United Kingdom has one of the highest immigration rates in the EU. Although
white people make up over 90% of the UK population, there are also many other
groups living in Great Britain (Supplement 2). The main reason why London has
become multicultural city is the long history of immigration to Britain which
increased greatly after World War II. Immigrants were encouraged to come to
Britain as the country needed many workers to rebuild its economy after the war.
Now the children and grandchildren of the earlier immigrants are full members of
British society. Immigrants come to Great Britain for many reasons: some of them
look for a well-paid job and better life; some seek protection from poverty, military
conflicts or political persecution. Almost every part of London is populated with a
wide mixture of people from many different countries. But in 2011 Prime Minister

4
and Conservative Party leader David Cameron said in a speech that "state
multiculturalism has failed".
Talking about the US we often use the metaphor ‘melting pot’ to emphasize that all
the immigrant cultures have mixed and assimilated into American society
(Supplement 3). An Americanized (and often stereotypical) version of the original
nation's cuisine, and its holidays, survived. The Melting Pot tradition co-exists with
a belief in national unity, dating from the American founding fathers. Today, the
largest groups of immigrants come from Mexico, the Philippines, and other parts
of Latin America and Asia.

Support for multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is seen by its supporters as a fairer system that allows people to

truly express who they are within a society, that is more tolerant and that adapts
better to social issues. They argue that culture is not one definable thing based on
one race or religion, but rather the result of multiple factors that change as the
world changes.

Historically, support for modern multiculturalism stems from the changes in

Western societies after World War II, in what Susanne Wessendorf calls the
"human rights revolution", in which the horrors of institutionalized racism
and ethnic cleansing became almost impossible to ignore in the wake of
the Holocaust; with the collapse of the European colonial system, as colonized
nations in Africa and Asia successfully fought for their independence and pointed
out the discriminatory underpinnings of the colonial system; and, in the United
States in particular, with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, which criticized
ideals of assimilation that often led to prejudices against those who did not act
according to Anglo-American standards and which led to the development of
academic ethnic studies programs as a way to counteract the neglect of
contributions by racial minorities in classrooms. As this history shows,
multiculturalism in Western countries was seen as a useful set of strategies to
combat racism, to protect minority communities of all types, and to undo policies

5
that had prevented minorities from having full access to the opportunities for
freedom and equality promised by the liberalism that has been the hallmark of
Western societies since the Age of Enlightenment. The contact hypothesis in
sociology is a well documented phenomenon in which cooperative interactions
with those from a different group than one's own reduce prejudice and inter-group
hostility.

C. James Trotman argues that multiculturalism is valuable because it "uses several

disciplines to highlight neglected aspects of our social history, particularly the
histories of women and minorities and promotes respect for the dignity of the lives
and voices of the forgotten. By closing gaps, by raising consciousness about the
past, multiculturalism tries to restore a sense of wholeness in a postmodern era that
fragments human life and thought."

Tariq Modood argues that in the early years of the 21st Century, multiculturalism
"is most timely and necessary, and we need more not less", since it is "the form of
integration" that best fits the ideal of egalitarianism, has "the best chance of
succeeding" in the "post-9/11, post 7/7" world, and has remained "moderate and
pragmatic".

Bhikhu Parekh counters what he sees as the tendencies to equate multiculturalism

with racial minorities "demanding special rights" and to see it as promoting a
"thinly veiled racism". Instead, he argues that multiculturalism is in fact "not about
minorities" but "is about the proper terms of relationship between different cultural
communities", which means that the standards by which the communities resolve
their differences, e.g., "the principles of justice" must not come from only one of
the cultures but must come "through an open and equal dialogue between them."

Opposition to multiculturalism

Critics of multiculturalism often debate whether the multicultural ideal of benignly

co-existing cultures that interrelate and influence one another, and yet remain
distinct, is sustainable, paradoxical, or even desirable. It is argued that Nation
states, who would previously have been synonymous with a distinctive cultural
6
identity of their own, lose out to enforced multiculturalism and that this ultimately
erodes the host nations' distinct culture.

Harvard professor of political science Robert D. Putnam conducted a nearly decade

long study how multiculturalism affects social trust. He surveyed 26,200 people in
40 American communities, finding that when the data were adjusted for class,
income and other factors, the more racially diverse a community is, the greater the
loss of trust. People in diverse communities "don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t
trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,"
writes Putnam. In the presence of such ethnic diversity, Putnam maintains that

We hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been
imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse
communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.

Ethologist Frank Salter writes:

Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher

level of public altruism. For example, the degree of ethnic homogeneity correlates
with the government's share of gross domestic product as well as the average
wealth of citizens. Case studies of the United States, Africa and South-East Asia
find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to
develop public infrastructure. Moscow beggars receive more gifts from fellow
ethnics than from other ethnies. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on
public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities
spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than
do the more homogeneous cities.

Dick Lamm, former three-term Democratic governor of the US state of Colorado,

wrote in his essay "I have a plan to destroy America":

"Diverse peoples worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other - that is,
when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is
against most historical precedent."

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 In New Zealand, which is officially bi-cultural, multiculturalism has been seen as a
threat to the Maori, and possibly an attempt by the New Zealand Government to
undermine Maori demands for self determination.

Multicultural woo

Multiculturalism has led some to tolerate or advocate various forms of woo, most
often some form of pseudohistory concerning a minority group or
crank anthropological ideas. These ideas are sometimes, ironically, based on
repackaged racial stereotypes and peddled to ignorant but otherwise well-meaning
white moon bats looking to "discover the rich ethnic heritage" of some group. This
has also in many cases led to what is termed in anti-racist circles as "cultural
appropriation" that often comes across as patronizing, even racist itself.

Examples include:

 Afrocentrism, which posits that Egypt was ruled by a black race and Greco-
Roman civilization, was descended from this region (Supplement 4). If you say
otherwise, you are obviously employing a “flawed” Eurocentric methodology
instead of the correct Afrocentric methodology. Also, the sometimes
overlapping melanin theory, which claims melanin confers some kind of biological
superiority.
 Native American woo, such as the "plastic shamans".
 New Age and nature woo will sometimes incorporate these ideas.
 Noble savage stereotypes (Supplement 5).
 Pseudosciences of non-white cultures being labeled as "local knowledge" or
"other ways of knowing."
 The idea of "Eastern knowledge" and its superiority to "Western
knowledge." This is especially popular in alternative medicine, in which "Eastern
medicine," such as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda, is touted as more
"natural" than "Western medicine."

8
Survey

In addition to my report I present you ethnic and religious composition of the

population in different countries. As Canadian society is often depicted as being
"very progressive, diverse, and multicultural" I’d like to say that 32.22% of the
population are Canadians, 21.03% - English, 15.82% - French, 15.11% - Scottish,
13.94% - Irish, and 1.88% - other nationalities (Supplement 6).

Representatives of nearly 10 religions live in Canada: Catholic – 43.6% of the

population, Protestant – 29.2%, Christian Orthodox – 1.6%, other religions –
25.6%.

Germany is home to the third-highest number of international migrants worldwide.

In 2012, 80.5% of Germans had no migration background, a further 4% were
Ethnic German immigrants (from countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and
Romania). In total, 91.6% of the population is of European background, excluding
Turkey (including Ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan but excluding Ethnic
Europeans from other parts of the world, such as the USA). 3.7% of the population
had Turkish background (Supplement 7).

Christianity is the largest religion in Germany, with around 49.4 million adherents
(62.8%) of which 24 million are Protestants (29.3%) belonging to the Protestant
churches and 23.9 million are Catholics (29.2%). The second largest religion
is Islam with an estimated 3.8 to 4.3 million adherents (4.6 to 5.2%). All other
religious communities in Germany have fewer than 200,000 adherents.

As of 2004, French think-tank Institute Montaigne estimated that there were 51

million (85%) white people or European origin, 6 million (10%) North African
people, 2 million (3.5%) Black people and 1 million (1.5%) people of Asian origin
in Metropolitan France, including all generations of immigrant descendants
(Supplement 8).

A study conducted by the CSA Institute in 2003 with a sample of 18,000 people
found that 27% considered themselves atheists, and 65.3% Roman Catholic, while
12.7% (8,065,000 people) belonged to some other religion.
9
Russian Federation is a multi-national state with over 185 ethnic groups designated
as nationalities, population of these groups varying enormously, from millions in
case of e.g. Russians and Tatars to under ten thousand in the case of Samis and
Kets. 78.1% of the population are Russians, next are Ukrainians – 7.4% and a
plenty of other nationalities (Supplement 9).

Based on the foregoing, I can say that people who live in multicultural countries
coexist more peacefully than those who live in countries containing only two
nationalities or religions. For example, Nicolas Sarkozy in his interview in 2011
said: “If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is
the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be
welcome in France”. “The French national community cannot accept a change in
its lifestyle, equality between men and women… freedom for little girls to go to
school”. “We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was
arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said efforts towards multiculturalism in
Germany had “failed, totally.” British Prime Minister David Cameron pronounced
his country’s long-standing policy of multiculturalism a failure, calling for better
integration of young Muslims to combat home-grown extremism.

10
Conclusion

Today behind many social and political conflicts is a problem of cultural

differences. That’s why we need to create a harmonious integrated society where
every member enjoys equal rights. Multiculturalism helps us build bridges between
communities; it is the pledge of piece, understanding, harmony and wellbeing.
Multiculturalism will help us create a united and tolerant culturally diverse society.
As Bhikhu Parekh, a professor of political philosophy at the University of
Westminster, said, ‘Multiculturalism is not about shutting oneself up in a
communal or cultural ghetto and leading a segregated and self-contained life.
Rather it is about opening up oneself to others, learning from their insights and
criticism, and growing as a result into a richer and tolerant culture’.

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Literature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism#Support_for_multiculturalism
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Multiculturalism
http://www.limitstogrowth.org/articles/2011/02/10/sarkozy-says-multiculturalism-
a-failure/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Russia
Юнёва, С.И. Открывая мир с английским языком. Современные темы для
обсуждения. Готовимся к ЕГЭ / С.И. Юнёва – Москва: «Интеллект-центр»,
2012. – 136 с.
Юнёва, С.И. Открывая мир с английским языком. 150 эссе для ЕГЭ.
Готовимся к ЕГЭ / С.И. Юнёва – Москва: «Интеллект-Центр», 2012. – 88 с.

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 Supplements
Supplement 1

Supplement 2

13
Supplement 3

Supplement 4

14
Supplement 5

Supplement 6

Canada

15
Supplement 7

Germany

Supplement 8

France

16
Supplement 9
Russia

17